6 Ways to Stop Fighting About Money For Good

6 Ways to Stop Fighting About Money For Good

One of the number one reasons for divorce is fighting about money. It’s a scary thought, but it’s true.

I’m a saver. I save money like a squirrel saves nuts for winter. My husband is a spender. He’ll blow through money like it’s the end of the world. Somehow, we got married, joined finances, and haven’t fought about money in close to a year.

My husband is the primary breadwinner in our family. We’re a family of five that lives off of one income.

We’ve been known to have power struggles using phrases like “but I’m the one who worked for the money” or “it’s my money” or “you don’t love us if you keep spending money!”

Yikes, right? Sound familiar?

Those fights were an almost-daily occurrence in our house. But after years and years of fighting about money, it stopped.

It happened slowly. One day we were fighting about why he spent money on lunch when he packed his own. And the next day he’s telling me how excited he was that we came in under-budget for vacation spending.

Ok, so it didn’t happen in a day. But it sure felt like it was yesterday that I was begging my husband to understand budgeting and finances.

I didn’t realize it until I was talking to a friend who was complaining that her husband has been racking up credit card debt because he felt that he deserved it (her words, not mine!). I was about to complain that my husband doesn’t understand saving money until I realized that all of the money fights that we had been almost a year old.

Somehow, we’d made it almost a year without a single fight about money. Looking back on it, there wasn’t necessarily one day that made the difference, but a maturing in our relationship and in our own selves.

1. Delegate

Have you ever heard the expression “there are too many cooks in the kitchen?” That’s what it’s like in a relationship where both people are trying to share the same financial responsibilities. The best way that I had ever heard it explained is from Jordan of FunCheaporFree.com:

“Any successful company doesn’t have two CFO’s or two CEO’s or two CMO’s. Why? Because it’s not efficient! And they would want to kill each other because everyone has their own way of doing things! The best thing to do is to give everyone their own roles and responsibilities based on their skills, interests, talents, and what they do on a typical daily basis.”

Each of you should be in charge of certain aspects of maintaining your household finances. This way, even the spender in the relationship has to be responsible for paying bills to see where the money really goes.

2. Complete transparency

If you finally agreed on a budget that makes sense for both of you but then you went and bought new shoes, be honest with your partner.

Both of you need to adopt a “no blame” mentality toward honesty about screw-ups. What I mean by that is who would want to be honest with someone who is just going to say things like “you’re the worst, how could you do that, you can’t handle money”? No one, that’s who!

Take the accusations and emotions out of the equation and you’ll be shocked with how open both of you become with each other. That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be action against the spending. Return the shoes, save the money, and learn from this experience.

It doesn’t all need to be negative either! Complete transparency includes sharing in the joys and excitements too. If you skipped buying lunch all week and put all of that money directly toward paying off your debt, share the excitement with your partner!

3. Take the possessive comments out of the conversation about money.

This is my biggest pet peeve as a stay-at-home mom: “but it’s MY money!”

Imma rant here for a second: when you’re married, you share everything. Finances included. Even if you work too, all of the money is “the family money,” not just one person. It was a family decision for one person to stay at home and for the other to work. Withholding finances, saying “I worked for it so it’s mine” is really hurtful and wrong.

I could go back to work and work full-time and make more than my husband does. But instead we decided together that it was best for me to stay at home with the children and homeschool them, and for my husband to be the one to go to work.

Whew. Now that the unpleasantness is out of the way, back to the point.

The only possessive word that should be used in conversations about budgeting and finances in a marriage is “ours.” Everything is shared. The good and the bad, everything is shared.

You are a team. Act like it.

When you take out the harsh possessive words, it allows you to work as a team instead of fighting each other.

4. Build a budget that you both can agree on.

Budgets are the key to financial success. But if your budget is only cutting into your partner’s spending and not addressing your own, it won’t work. It will create stress, resentment, and just ultimately not work.

Building a budget with your partner will require both of your to focus and work at it. The best way to do this is to go out to a neutral location (where neither one of you will be able to flip out or raise your voice), away from the kids and other distractions at home, and make a date to talk about finances.

These dates should happen as often as you need them to. They should happen at least once a month to talk about what worked, what didn’t, and goals for the upcoming month(s).

These “money dates” accomplish 2 major things:

1. You really get to talk about finances in a meaningful and purposeful manner. This is a planned day to know exactly what you’re going to talk about. This way, no one feels ganged up on, blind-sided, or “jumped” by the other person.
2. It’s a date! Dates are great in a marriage. It helps you to reconnect and refocus your priorities.

Making a budget that you both agree on, that forces both of you to work to change some things, and that puts you both on the same page is key to stop fighting about money for good.

5. Set up your bank accounts for success

When you build your budget, there are 6 bank accounts that your family needs. But the most important accounts are the “fun accounts.” These accounts allow both of you an agreed upon amount to spend however you want. But not a penny more.

Yes, these accounts are the reason that I tricked my husband into saving enough money for a down payment on our house. But they also helped him to be in control of his money without worrying that he’d destroy our account. He could only spend a certain amount (that he agreed on!), and when it was gone, it was gone.

6. Set a goal

Having an incentive is a great motivator. Whether your incentive is that in one year after your last money fight you’ll try to have a baby, or if it’s to be debt-free by Christmas, find a common goal and work toward it.

Even if the reward is something that the spender needs to work towards by themselves, the saver can then cheer them on and be their support system. If you’re the saver in the marriage, it might seem silly to need to cheer someone on to save money. But for the spender, this is uncharted territory. They need your support until they can find a way that makes saving money easier for them.

Remember, at the end of the day, you are a team. All of your triumphs are shared. Weaknesses are shared, also. But so are the rewards. And a happy marriage without fighting about money is the best reward that I can think of.

What helped you stop fighting about money?